Fruit of the Loom

Fruit beers. Just the name can nauseate beer connoisseurs. We have always felt that fruit beers are for people who either don't like beer, or those who like their drinks with little paper umbrellas in the glasses. The only fruit we like in our beers is the hop - technically not a fruit, but close enough. So it was that Fred called an impromptu gathering of the Founding Fathers to sample a few fruity selections from his massive beer fridge, that he could no longer bear to watch age. Upon hearing the cry for a Fruit of the Loom night, Wilder ran to Bim's house with Fred in hot pursuit, both in the uniform of the day. We started off with a New Glarus Raspberry Tart (4.0%). This amazing beer uses a shitload of fermented raspberries in each bottle. It has a few of the other traditional beer ingredients as well, like hops, yeast and barley, but you'd be hard pressed to find any hint of them here. This is one fruity drink, but a damn good one! We could drink this shit by the gallon, kind of like Crazy Ken's fruity moonshine brewed by his uncle Popcorn. It was an easy RFG. Next up was New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red (4.0%), another over-the-top fruit bomb that we loved. Think Luden's cough drop, in liquid form, with a little bit of alcohol, and you've got this beer. It was easily another RFG. Then came the Brassiere Cantillon's Kreik Lambic (5%). This beer smelled like ass initially, which would put off most beer drinkers but not us. We continued on and were rewarded with a really good beer. Bubbly and sour, an easy Really Good rating. Avery Brabant (8.65%) is a barrel aged wild ale that's aged in zinfandel barrels. What a nice beer. Smooth, with a sour wine taste at the end, rating it a really good. Avery Depuceleuse (9.59%) is another beer aged in zinfandel barrels. This sour beer is a little lighter in color than it's cousin, and much more sour with a slight baby applesauce smell. Don't believe us??? Drink one yourself, asshole! All in attendence agreed it was really good. Last up was a Port Brewing Mongo IPA (8.5%). No, this is no fruit beer, but it was a damn good beer nonetheless. A fruity, Pliny-like smell, smooth as silk, hoppy as shit. This is a damn good IPA, rating a really good. With no more beers to taste, this informal Fruit of the Loom night had come to an end, and the group departed home with dreams of sugar plumb fairies and raspberry tarts dancing in our heads.

The Spelunker's Guide to CHC Brewing

Recently, our resident brewmaster, Bim, allowed one of his closest confidantes, a bohemian, skirt chasing spelunker "or chocolate starfish invader" named "Jason" a chance to taste and rate one of our GGBF (Great Guatemalan Beer Festival) winning home brews, the sultry and delicious Pole-smoker Porter......As usual, madness then ensues..


"Jason" said...What follows is a rating of a beer provided to me by Beerclub member Bim. This is one of his vaunted home brews. I've heard that brewers like to use something about themselves in choosing the name of their beers. Bim chose Polesmoker. How appropriate. As I crack open the label-deprived bottle, the first thing to hit me is the aroma. The sweet, slightly hoppy smell caresses my olfactory sense with a promise of good things to come. It never delivers. The first sip conjured up an image of someone ringing a dirty dish rag out in my mouth. You know, one that had been balled up in the sink and never quite dried out. The second was how I would imagine it would taste dumping a jar of old pennies in my mouth that had been collected from a wet alleyway in Detroit. The third sip would be akin to licking the taint of an Indian (dot not feather) curry salesman in August in Calcutta. Each sip successively worse, to the point where I am unable to prucure further vomit inducing imagery. Here lies the problem: I am quite familiar with your own rating system, but I believe it to be lacking when it comes to this particular beer. You see, RFG is the pinnacle. It aptly proclaims "This beer is Really Fucking Good" with boldness. On the opposite end is "Sucks." Whereas it tells the audience that the beer is obviously terrible, it lacks the panache of the RFG. Just as Superman needs his Lex Luthor, RFG needs it's polar opposite, it's antithesis, it's biblical "east from west" analogy. Therefore necessity rightly brings the RFB, the Really Fucking Bad. Polesmoker has found it's home.



Beer Club 4 Men's reply?..

Thank you “Jason” (if that is your real name) for your unsolicited, yet insightful review. We at the CHC Brewery strive to bring you the finest craft beers. Like our idol, Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head, we travel the globe to find the most unique and flavorful beer ingredients. We are amazed that your distinguished palate was able to correctly name each of these specialty additives. Snake spent 4 long summer months in Calcutta, every day carefully collecting the taint juice of our sweaty curry salesman Samir Banglev. And the dishrag you identified, while very close, was actually an old, wet towel used to clean the urinal splatter in the men’s room of an I-95 rest area. But your best identification came with the pennies. Bim Jr collected pennies for a year, which we then scattered in a Norfolk alley letting them marinate in bum urine and the elements for 12 months before being collected and added to our beer during secondary fermentation. Your ability to discern the subtle taste of decaying copper is truly a gift. We submitted our Polesmoker Porter to Beer Advocate for tasting, but their review was only three words: “Tastes like shit”. You sir, not only have a gifted palate but are also quite the wordsmith. Our hats off to you “Jason”.

BC4M Founding Father Bim

Stifler's Big Surprise

From the title, I'm sure that you readers fully expect some type of penis jokes as being the "big surprise". Not here. The BC4M is a very serious group. We never resort to genitalia jokes, boob shots, or Fred telling off-color jokes for cheap laughs. So what was Stifler's Big Surprise? It was the fact that the Beach Brewing Company has a new beer... And it's good! This one is a double IPA called Hoptopus (8.8%). It is by far their best effort (even by our lame standards). A little sweet, a little hoppy, easily drinkable with enough alcohol to get your buzz on and make things interesting. In fact, this stuff has such an alcohol punch that the first time we got together as a group to sample it, the BC4M looked more like a skid row drinking binge with bodies strewn all over the place. Bim and Wilder were located in the back yard, totally wasted, while Snake and Fred were located hours later in a completely different part of town, mumbling incoherently, and D-rail, well, the picture speaks for itself. This stuff may well be the Four Loco version of IPA's. Even Ken was impressed as he declared, "at least it doesn't smell like Fred Flintstone's ass". Despite the near alcohol poisoning, the taste is really good and the beer rated such. With a little more hop flavor this one could be spectacular. If you haven't sampled this beer, get over to Beach and get some before it all disappears.